The invention relates to a method for obtaining information about the load and/or unbalance of a laundry drum of a washing machine, with the laundry drum being driven by an electric motor. The stator of the electric motor comprises at least one winding that is coupled to a power inverter, which can also be referred to as an inverter, controlled by a control unit. The invention also relates to a circuit arrangement for determining the unbalance and/or the load of a laundry drum. Finally, the invention relates to a washing machine having such a circuit arrangement.
It is the prior art to determine the load and the unbalance of the laundry drum of a washing machine during a washing cycle. Reference is made here to the publication EP 1 512 785 A1, in which a method for determining the load of the laundry drum is described. With this method, the load is determined after completion of a resistance braking and a regenerative braking, with which energy fed back by the electric motor is stored. In other words, with the known method both the resistance braking and also the regenerative braking are needed in order to be able to determine the load of the laundry drum.